i treated myself to a retail version of half-life for christmas. all in all the game is excellent, besides the steam fuzz. there was a constant increase in suspense (except the sometimes somewhat lengthy car and hovercraft drives) and the graphics are of course top notch. all the bigger was the the disapointment when i finally reached the end of the game. i expected that i would finally get to know who the combine are and what the whole story is about (including a connection to the first part and the g-man). instead the game just ends after destroying some teleportation device, that i was sure would bring me to the combine dimension, planet, whatever. to me it seems that valve just cut off a part of the story to finally ship the game. after vavle put me through this steam busines and endles start up times i would have expected more.

Ed_Mack
—
2005-01-05T15:52:20Z —
#2

Is it worth the playing? I'm on the edge of buying

Mihail121
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2005-01-05T18:04:03Z —
#3

My advice is not to buy it except if you're not the most biggest HL fan ever and definetely want THIS game in your collection. I considere it a game like any other game today and nothing fancy...

Perhaps it will be a better decision to get WOW or LineAge 2

NomadRock
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2005-01-05T18:14:32Z —
#4

I myself have found WoW to have far exceeded my expectations. It is quite possibly the best game I have ever played. (And that is from a person who still thinks Pong, TombRaider1, DeusEx1, and Fallout2 get spots in the top 10.)

Ed_Mack
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2005-01-05T21:00:03Z —
#5

Does WoW require a subscription? I'm a very dotty gamer, and have no stability.

Mihail121
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2005-01-05T21:37:56Z —
#6

Yep, WoW requires subscription alright! I think it's about 12.5 euro per month in Europe, no idea for the US

anubis
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2005-01-06T00:26:34Z —
#7

half-life is worth playing as long as you don't mind the lame story (actually just the end).

as for WoW : i'm looking forward to play that game so much i'm almost wetting my pants. EdMack : it would be noble of blizzard not to charge anything for their online game but also kind of... stupid

Reedbeta
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2005-01-06T08:24:10Z —
#8

I agree that the ending was disappointing. But I suppose we will just have to wait for HL3 for that. It was also a bit shorter than I would have expected; I too thought the portal at the end would take you to the Combine planet. However, I thought the gameplay was excellent - I particularly loved "We Don't Go To Ravenholm," (the zombie section with the insane priest), and "Follow Freeman" (the tense urban warfare section near the end). The designers did an excellent job at managing the tension level, without making gameplay too difficult. One of my major complaints about Far Cry was that it made me reload far too often, even on easy mode (and that you can't save except at checkpoints), but this was not the case with HL2.

Additionally, the Source Engine is easily the most advanced FPS engine around today. Although there does not seem to be any bump mapping in HL2 (??), the physics simulation easily beats anything else out there, and the water shader is fucking amazing. I can't wait to play with this engine a bit and see what the mod community will do with it.

Michael
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2005-01-06T14:11:47Z —
#9

@Ed Mack

Is it worth the playing? I'm on the edge of buying [snapback]14911[/snapback]

Buy it. Best game since Deus Ex 1

anubis
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2005-01-06T14:55:45Z —
#10

Reedbeta : i really wonder if they had to make the game shorter than intended. on the other hand... after delaying the game for so long they could have taken that extra time

NomadRock : after you mentioning it i dug out fallout2 again. after i haven't played it for so long it's really fun again. the post apocalyptic atmosphere is just caught so well. a shame that we will never see part 3

NomadRock
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2005-01-07T04:40:02Z —
#11

We will from Bethesda. They will release Fallout 3 in a year or two I think. They did Morrowind very good, and I just hope they capture the comedy from the Fallout games.

anubis
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2005-01-07T11:03:55Z —
#12

seriously ? i didn't hear about that. well... another game to look forward to

Additionally, the Source Engine is easily the most advanced FPS engine around today. Although there does not seem to be any bump mapping in HL2 (??), the physics simulation easily beats anything else out there, and the water shader is fucking amazing. I can't wait to play with this engine a bit and see what the mod community will do with it.

Yeah it has bump mapping but its precalculated which can make it hard to see. Look at the bumps on the wall and think about just how many textures they'd need to get that effect without bumpmapping...

TBH, though, I thought the HL2 was one of the least advanced FPS engines around. In comparison to the likes of Doom 3 and Far cry it just didn't cut it ... the shadowing is awful ... really don't know why they bothered ... you can see the shadows in dark areas ffs ... there is only 1 shadow and it appears to have no relation to lights in the scene! Sure it had a nice physics engine but even then you'll note that the characters don't bump into each other (they go THROUGH each other). Corners are cut all over the place and its one saving grace (due to having a very unadvanced graphics engine) is that the detail in the, painfully small, levels is beyond most other games out there at the mo. Mind ... why they couldn't have used some form of streaming system is beyond me ... Might, at the very least, have minimised those god awful load times ...

Ed_Mack
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2005-01-07T18:37:47Z —
#14

I wasn't sure if WoW was purely online - Is it the new EQ? I've played online games before, but they suck all your time away

anubis
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2005-01-08T01:49:53Z —
#15

i just got half life 2 running with cedega. it sure runs slow on 1024x768 but i would rate it playable and it's by far more than i had expected. surprisingly there were no problems with the installation (in fact i even have steam running in the tray). way to go transgaming !

NomadRock
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2005-01-08T16:26:54Z —
#16

WoW is indeed purely multiplayer. Yes, it does tend to suck your time away, but only because it is so fun that I want to play it all the time. Morrowind did this to me, and so did Splinter Cell.

Isn't everyone always complaining about too few gameplay hours for their money? It is considered standard to pay 60 USD for a game that you get 12 hours of gameplay out of. That is 5 USD per hour.

at 13 USD per month WoW gets much more than 3 hours of gameplay per month. There seems to be no end to the ammount of origional gameplay either. I end up turning most quests down, simply because I dont have the time to do them. If I start a new character I can do these quests instead.